Report: FBI agent in Petraeus case ID'd

The FBI agent who started the investigation of emails that led to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus and then was removed from the case is Frederick W. Humphries II, the New York Times reported Wednesday evening.

The Times reports that Humphries took the initial complaint from Tampa socialite Jill Kelley regarding disturbing anonymous emails. Those emails were determined to come from Paula Broadwell, and further investigation found that Broadwell and Petraeus were having an affair.

Humphries is described in the report as “passionate” and “obsessive,” and was part of the FBI’s investigation of the 1999 plot to set off a bomb at the Los Angeles International Airport. Two years ago, Humphries was attacked outside of MacDill Air Force Base by a man wielding a knife. Humphries fatally shot the man, and the shooting was determined to be an appropriate use of force, the Times reports.

Humphries grew up in Steilacoom, Wash., attended high school in Canada and was a captain in military intelligence in the Army. He later attended the University of Tampa and studied criminology, according to the Seattle Times, which profiled Humphries as part of its series on the LAX case. As a third-year agent in Seattle, Humphries helped identify that a suspect crossing into the United States had an Algerian accent and wasn’t from Montreal, as he claimed.

Meanwhile, Humphries took issue with media reports that the FBI agent sent shirtless photos of himself to Kelley. Lawrence Berger, the general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, characterized the photo as a “joke.”

“That picture was sent years before Ms. Kelley contacted him about this, and it was sent as part of a larger context of what I would call social relations in which the families would exchange numerous photos of each other,” Berger told the Times.